Conference Schedule:
8:30-9:00 am Registration
9:00-9:10 Welcome and Introduction
9:10-10:30 Karlen Lyons-Ruth's presentation
10:30-10:45 break
10:45-12:00 Karlen Lyons-Ruth's presentation
12:00-1:00 pm lunch (provided)
1:00-2:15 Ted Gaensbauer, M.D. lecture
2:15-2:30 break (light snack provided)
2:30-3:45 Margy Stewart, Psy.D. lecture
3:45-4:30 Q and A with all
A certificate of attendance for 6 hours will be provided. Note that it is not CE/CEUs.
Attachment, Relational Trauma & Dissociative Process: Implications for Treatment Featuring Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Ph.D.
Dialogue and Dissociation: Developmental Pathways to Dissociation, Suicidality, and Borderline Personality Features
Disorganized attachment processes in infancy have been theorized to contribute to the etiology of dissociation in adulthood. This talk will focus on the current state of knowledge regarding the childhood trajectories that lead to dissociation, borderline psychopathology and suicidality, with an emphasis on distinguishing the effects of trauma and attachment in these trajectories. The talk will present new findings from recent prospective longitudinal attachment-focused studies, and include videotaped illustrations of relevant parent-child attachment patterns in infancy, middle childhood and late adolescence. Discussion will examine the ways in which the disturbed parent-child dialogue may contribute to dissociation, and the multiple relational configurations that may reemerge in the therapeutic relationship.
About Karen Lyons-Ruth, Ph.D.
Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and a member of the clinical faculty at Cambridge Hospital. Her work has focused on understanding the adaptations in attachment relationships that occur in high-risk environments over the infancy, childhood, and adolescent periods and has been supported by NIMH and NICHD. She is the author of numerous research articles and book chapters on infant social development, maternal trauma and depression, and the parent-infant attachment relationship, and serves on the Governing Board of the World Association for Infant Mental Health. She also publishes with the Boston Change Process Study Group to propose reorientations in psychoanalytic theory based on the emerging body of developmental research. She is an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, an affiliated scholar of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and maintains a private practice in Cambridge, MA.
with afternoon lectures:
“Moments of Meeting:” Problematic Caregiver-Infant Affective Attunement and the Development of Pathological Social Relatedness with Theodore Gaensbauer, M.D.
This presentation will describe how disturbances in affect regulation associated with early attachment disturbances can lead not only to the establishment of enduring defense mechanisms such as dissociation but also to enduring forms of pathological social relatedness that are specific to the parent-infant dyad. Building on the pioneering work of Lou Sander, Dan Stern and their colleagues, including Dr. Lyons-Ruth, documenting the crucial role that moment-to-moment intersubjective exchanges between infant and caregiver play in shaping the child’s development, Dr. Gaensbauer will propose that the emotional validation derived from recurrent intersubjective experiences of mutual attunement involving negative affects can be as emotionally compelling from the child’s standpoint as that derived from positive exchanges. Children’s needs to recreate unhealthy but affectively “alive” moments of engagement with their caregivers can lead to ingrained, automatically operating pathological patterns of social/emotional relatedness (what Dr. Lyons-Ruth and her colleagues have termed “implicit relational knowing”). These internalized relational structures or “relational scripts” can become essential components in the child’s sense of a coherent self such that the child is strongly motivated to recreate them in subsequent relationships. The clinical implications of this perspective will be illustrated through video and case examples. Dr. Gaensbauer will also briefly review recent neuropsychological research, including the discovery of “mirror neurons,” that has enhanced our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying such powerful intersubjective shaping.
Working with Adults Who Have Experienced Relational Trauma and Dissociative Processes with Margy Stewart, Psy.D.
Dr. Stewart will discuss treatment interventions based on attachment experiences and dissociative processes which manifest within the patient's self experience and therapeutic relationship. Margy will include working with overwhelming affect, disparate and dissociated states which present in the transference, shame related to non-recognition of self experience and loss of sense of self, unformulated experience, enactments; and developing transitional space and reflective functioning while considering treatment over time. She will present the therapeutic use of therapists' and analysts' countertransference experiences such as shifting thoughts, strong feelings, confusion, senses of inadequacy, dissociation and disavowed experiences.
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If you prefer to pay by check, please send a note along with your check, with your name, address, and email address to the Society Office: 12469 E. 17th Place, Mail Stop F478, Aurora CO 80045
Location:
Anschutz Medical Campus
Research I North: Hensel Phelps Auditorium
12800 East 19th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045
Follow the signs from the Ignacio Visitor's Lot to the one entrance where we will be greeting registrants. A parking map for the university can be found here.
Conference Registration Rates (rates include lunch):
Society member on/before March 31st: $125*
Society member from April 1 - 30th: $135*
Non DPS member on/before March 31st: $140
Non DPS member from April 1 - 30th: $150
Student: $60**
Late Registration for anyone registering May 1 - 6th: $160
*If you are a DPS member please refer to society emails or the member area of the website for your coupon code to register online.
**If you are a student, enter the following code: Student2017, we have the right to verify your student status/request for reduced fee registration.
If you need to cancel, you will be issued a refund in the same manner in which you paid, minus a $30 administrative fee.
